BWW Exclusive: 14 Hours at the National Theater Institute

With a singular schedule and an unmatched breadth of training, the National Theater Institute offers students a springboard to the professional world at the two-time Tony Award-winning Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. Founded in 1970, NTI's credit-earning theater intensives, taught by industry professionals and master teachers, train actors, singers, directors, dancers, designers, playwrights, and composers who are high school graduates, undergraduates, and post-graduates.

Today, Risk Again! takes a look at that "singular schedule" in the photo gallery below! Last Tuesday, NTI featured 19 classes and 11 faculty members, all master teachers or industry professionals, who come to the O'Neill every week and share their talents with the students of the NTI Semester, NTI-Advanced Directing, and National Music Theater Institute.

Next week: Risk Again! Notes from the National Theater Institute will showcase a student's perspective and learn about what it means to spend 14 weeks "studying away."

To learn more and apply, visit www.NationalTheaterInstitute.org and on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (@NTIRiskFailRisk). The application deadline for fall 2015 semester is March 20. Early applications are encouraged.

7:30am Morning warm-ups! Warm-ups include yoga, Tai-Chi, mediation, voicework, and Lecoq exercises. Marya Ursin leads students in yoga, meditation, and reflection exercises in the Dina Merrill Theater.

8:15am Students have breakfast and check the call board for the day's schedule, faculty bios, and important announcements.

9:00am For over 50 years the O'Neill has been an artistic training ground. To study at the O'Neill is to create theater on equal footing with the hundreds of theatrical luminaries who have also called this campus home.

9:45am NMTI Ballet Class taught by Gloria Govrin, former NYCB soloist and Balanchine muse.

10:15am Students present a scene in actor Brian McManamon's Contemporary Acting Class.

11:00 am NTI students take a weekly singing class with singer Anne Tofflemire.

12:15pm The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's Waterford, Connecticut campus is a collection of renovated 19th-century mansions, farmhouses, and barns overlooking the Long Island Sound. The resources of the O'Neill and its 90-acre seaside campus are available for use by students. 8. 1:00pm Students run lines in the Gazebo.

1:00pm Students run lines in the Gazebo.

2:00pm Following private Musical Analysis sessions with composer Jeff Bowen, NMTI students work on their skills "Acting into Song" with actor Alex Gemignani in the Barn. Alex also teaches Music Theater Scene Study and Music Theater Symposium every week with director Erin Ortman. O'Neill Fun Fact: Alex Gemignani was last seen on Broadway in Roundabout Theater's 2014 Tony-nominated revival of Violet, a musical given its first staged reading in the same Barn in 1994 as part of the O'Neill's National Music Theater Conference.

2:30pm NTI-Advanced Directors in their weekly class with Suzanne Agins, focusing on how to Direct New Work.

4:15pm A NTI student works on his one act play for Donna Di Novelli's playwriting class. Selected plays will receive a workshop during Playwrights and Librettists week later this month. The week will feature 20 new works written, composed, directed, choreographed, performed, designed, and produced by the student ensemble.

7:30pm The new Jim and Jane Henson Rehearsal Hall opened this semester and features a dance studio with sprung floor and a state-of-the art composition and writing studio.

8:00pm Class with local artist Kat Murphy explores new forms of visual expression every week.

8:45pm NMTI students chat outside the Barn in between private singing lessons with Anne Tofflemire.

9:00pm Director Gregg Wiggans introduces the directing process to students, using Michael Christopher's play The Shadow Box.

10:00pm Classes have ended. It is now time for homework, reading, and rest. NTI's seven day a week schedule means that it all begins again at 7:30am. In addition to being a popular student rehearsal space, the Margot and Rufus Rose Barn has also been home to developmental readings of Violet, In the Heights, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Nine, and The Wild Party among hundreds of others.